Extractivism and the City: Understanding the Dimension of Loss. Interview with Gabriela Massuh, Author of Degüello (2019)

Abstract

This work is the result of an interview with the author Gabriela Massuh about her fourth novel, Degüello (2019). During the interview, Massuh analyzes the origin of the work based on her research on the destruction of public space in Buenos Aires and how this process of "becoming homeless" in one's own city motivated the creation of this work of fiction. The author reports that the starting point for the work was her reading of the Indian writer Arundhati Roy, whose influence allowed her to transfer her ideas into our context, giving life to her characters and narrating the city's crisis. The exchange also delves into the thought of figures such as Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin, allowing the author to address "the dimension of loss" (Arendt) and the image of the “angel of history” (Benjamin) to interpret the present. Finally, the interview reflects on urban extractivism, the city’s violence, and the power of poetry as that which sustains us and allows us to retain something of what we are losing.